Ever since mandatory WFH ended, I've been in the office almost every day. When I'm alone at home, it takes 2-3x more effort to do anything compared to when I'm in an office. Also, work-related stress easily "pollutes" my home headspace, which makes it hard for me to relax if I'm working from the same place I rest.
Things would probably be much different if I owned a house, had a dedicated "office" room, and lived with someone else. But I'm still a long time away from that. A tiny rented noise-polluted apartment is definitely my least favorite place to work from.
>work-related stress easily "pollutes" my home headspace, which makes it hard for me to relax if I'm working from the same place I rest.
This makes sense, but I guess I don't feel this way from being trained by years of stressful university work in a tiny studio apartment. ;p (And I have multiple rooms now!)
Count me in to this bucket. I’ve had to work remotely for most of my 12-year software career, and I just find it frustrating and unproductive compared to being in the same room with my team. I finally got an in person job a few years before the pandemic and loved it, highlight of my career. But now the company is all remote and the entire industry with it. I really dislike it.
(Before you flame me, I am very fortunate and have an A+ detached home office setup; I also have done the co-work thing to try and replicate the social aspect of things, and it’s not the same.)
I wish there was a way for remote to be a personal preference and for everyone to get their preference, but unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. If the team is strict about in office then nobody who prefers remote gets their preference. But once anyone is remote then everyone is dealing with remote, and more of the team will have reasons why they want to go remote too… and very quickly it’s 30-50% of the team. Then in practice you have to be full remote and Async or it all falls apart, so even if half or more of the team preferred in-person, they don’t get it.
> I just find it frustrating and unproductive compared to being in the same room with my team.
I agree with you here, but I haven’t been in the same room with my team in 20 years. People are distributed now and there’s not really a way I know to get everyone in the same room since there’s different cities and countries, commutes, etc.
It was really fun and productive to be part of a small team building stuff with back to back offices and cubes. But I’m not 20 any more and neither is anyone on my team.
Before the pandemic we never had everyone in one place.
So while it’s nice to have everyone at the same life stage and location to allow for in person work, that’s not possible any more. So I think remote is better than the hybrid of what we had before.
Its a lovely sunny day here in the UK and I'm stuck in this mouldy office when I could be on a laptop in the garden. Any home workers want to swap jobs?
Edit
> Compton believes offices come with multiple benefits, including enabling colleagues to feed off each other's energy.
Yes this is the biggest reason I want out of the office. I have my own work and I don't need energy vampires draining me.
Some of this depends on how clean a work/life boundary you had before the pandemic.
If like me, you work in a job where you are on-call, frequently checking in morning/night/weekends, taking out-of-hours calls with other regions, etc.. then the line was long ago blurred. So I was already doing lots of “extra” semi-involuntary time from home, why bother with the ceremony of the commute in the middle of the elongated work day?
During the pandemic companies really started to abuse this.. my wife & I started having more regular team meetings at early hours that would never have happened in-office. If they want us back in the office, then the day will need to shrink again.
Lastly, in addition to losing the extra time companies have gotten from us - I’ve noticed that another counterintuitive office aspect is all the gossip. Management thinks that we need the serendipity of the “water cooler chats” and informal networks coming up with the next big idea. Little of that happens in reality in most orgs. What does happen though is lots of gossip about who is on the way up/down, in/out. People are a lot more candid IRL than on electronic, likely recorded, means.. and in some cases thats not a good thing.
There is an abundance of coworking spaces available (likely more as employers end their leases). It's not like work-from-home advocates are saying that these need to go away also.
Remote-first has the highest degree of freedom for everyone involved. Office-first only works for those who enjoy it. These arguments are inherently selfish.
Working in a private room in a coworking space with random strangers is not the same as working in an office where everyone is working for the same company.
You may believe that there is absolutely no benefit to being physically collocated with your colleagues, and you may even be right, it’s quite obviously a very different option from the only 2 you’ve presented (work at home/work in a coworking space with random people).
I'd like to see the break-down based on job position and duties. I highly suspect people who want to go into office will: 1) have large decorated offices with doors, visitor chairs, admin assistants and in-person tech support. 2) spend 6 of 8 hours of their day in meetings.
I can't say I hate working from home, but I appreciate being able to go back to the office 2-3 days per week (and I'd hate not being able to). And I work in an open space and spend most of my time not in meeting, similarly to the dozen of colleagues that come back to the office regularly. And right now there's no obligation from our management to do so... So no, I don't think it's only people like the categories you described
i miss being on the road. i used to travel for work from sunday to thursday. client work aside, this was a guaranteed period of time alone for me. while i love my wife, i need a lot of it.
i havent traveled for a client since then and it is slowly driving me nuts. balancing work, gym, alone time, personal project time, and time with my wife is pushing my limits hard.
If you are struggling because you need this alone time, both you and your wife may see an improvement in your domestic life if you are honest with her about this need.
I am. I went to therapy for a few months to root cause why I'm like this, and with his help, I was able to talk to her to work out ways to incorporate it into our relationship. Things are much better for me now than in 2020 and 2021, but I still struggle with it.
I wonder how many people who want to be back in the office are those who don't have too many friends outside of work? I'm not dragging on anyone, it is hard to make friends as an adult and it is common for people to form social connections at work.
I don't think its always about bosses wanting their minions at desks.
I don’t have any close friends. I love working from home. I love the freedom of being able to work from any location. And most of all I love being able to focus on work instead of having to wear noise cancelling headphones so I can drown out other people chatting about YouTubers and Netflix series’ while I’m trying to get my work done while I’m at work in order to avoid working from home during my personal time.
I am torn on this issue.
On one hand I don't want to waste my time commuting nor I don't want to sit in open-space office where everyone screaming over everyone and I can't concentrate
On the other hand I need that physical separation between I work here and I relax here
Rent a desk or cheapest room/ single desk office you can find near home. I did this for years and it was the perfect balance for me. Granted, I paid for it, but my time and sanity was more valuable than those extra few hundred bucks.
To the tech people who actually want to go to the office, I'm genuinely curious what sort of work you do that makes that useful. I would say that I get the same work done that I did while I was in the office but I spend about 25% of the time to do it. The other 75% was composed of commuting, random office conversations, getting coffee, sitting in my office waiting for a meeting, going to lunch, taking breaks, working not in flow state etc.
I'd really like to understand what it is that people actually do in offices that makes it worthwhile for them, the image I have in my mind is just the standard uncharitable "well my job is fake and an office helps me pretend it's not" manager/MBA person. Even doing hardware I find I get more done at home with occasional trips in to integrate things.
I think they are people with special social needs like meeting colleagues in the office. For smalltalk, eating together and exchanging weekend stories. All nightmares to me.
YouTube and other distractions open too easily when I'm at home. I need the environment of a bunch of other people around me also working to get work done.
24 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 61.9 ms ] threadEver since mandatory WFH ended, I've been in the office almost every day. When I'm alone at home, it takes 2-3x more effort to do anything compared to when I'm in an office. Also, work-related stress easily "pollutes" my home headspace, which makes it hard for me to relax if I'm working from the same place I rest.
Things would probably be much different if I owned a house, had a dedicated "office" room, and lived with someone else. But I'm still a long time away from that. A tiny rented noise-polluted apartment is definitely my least favorite place to work from.
This makes sense, but I guess I don't feel this way from being trained by years of stressful university work in a tiny studio apartment. ;p (And I have multiple rooms now!)
The walk to/from the office is also a very good mind-clearing ritual. It helps me separate work stress from life stress.
(Before you flame me, I am very fortunate and have an A+ detached home office setup; I also have done the co-work thing to try and replicate the social aspect of things, and it’s not the same.)
I wish there was a way for remote to be a personal preference and for everyone to get their preference, but unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. If the team is strict about in office then nobody who prefers remote gets their preference. But once anyone is remote then everyone is dealing with remote, and more of the team will have reasons why they want to go remote too… and very quickly it’s 30-50% of the team. Then in practice you have to be full remote and Async or it all falls apart, so even if half or more of the team preferred in-person, they don’t get it.
I agree with you here, but I haven’t been in the same room with my team in 20 years. People are distributed now and there’s not really a way I know to get everyone in the same room since there’s different cities and countries, commutes, etc.
It was really fun and productive to be part of a small team building stuff with back to back offices and cubes. But I’m not 20 any more and neither is anyone on my team.
Before the pandemic we never had everyone in one place.
So while it’s nice to have everyone at the same life stage and location to allow for in person work, that’s not possible any more. So I think remote is better than the hybrid of what we had before.
Edit > Compton believes offices come with multiple benefits, including enabling colleagues to feed off each other's energy.
Yes this is the biggest reason I want out of the office. I have my own work and I don't need energy vampires draining me.
If like me, you work in a job where you are on-call, frequently checking in morning/night/weekends, taking out-of-hours calls with other regions, etc.. then the line was long ago blurred. So I was already doing lots of “extra” semi-involuntary time from home, why bother with the ceremony of the commute in the middle of the elongated work day?
During the pandemic companies really started to abuse this.. my wife & I started having more regular team meetings at early hours that would never have happened in-office. If they want us back in the office, then the day will need to shrink again.
Lastly, in addition to losing the extra time companies have gotten from us - I’ve noticed that another counterintuitive office aspect is all the gossip. Management thinks that we need the serendipity of the “water cooler chats” and informal networks coming up with the next big idea. Little of that happens in reality in most orgs. What does happen though is lots of gossip about who is on the way up/down, in/out. People are a lot more candid IRL than on electronic, likely recorded, means.. and in some cases thats not a good thing.
Remote-first has the highest degree of freedom for everyone involved. Office-first only works for those who enjoy it. These arguments are inherently selfish.
Working in a private room in a coworking space with random strangers is not the same as working in an office where everyone is working for the same company.
You may believe that there is absolutely no benefit to being physically collocated with your colleagues, and you may even be right, it’s quite obviously a very different option from the only 2 you’ve presented (work at home/work in a coworking space with random people).
i havent traveled for a client since then and it is slowly driving me nuts. balancing work, gym, alone time, personal project time, and time with my wife is pushing my limits hard.
If you are struggling because you need this alone time, both you and your wife may see an improvement in your domestic life if you are honest with her about this need.
I don't think its always about bosses wanting their minions at desks.
On the other hand I need that physical separation between I work here and I relax here
I'd really like to understand what it is that people actually do in offices that makes it worthwhile for them, the image I have in my mind is just the standard uncharitable "well my job is fake and an office helps me pretend it's not" manager/MBA person. Even doing hardware I find I get more done at home with occasional trips in to integrate things.
I think they are people with special social needs like meeting colleagues in the office. For smalltalk, eating together and exchanging weekend stories. All nightmares to me.